Technology Blog

Kuan-Teh Jeang, Open Access And Public Archiving: The Future Of Scientific Publishing?
NIH Catalyst
, Jan-Feb, 2006 (accessible only to NIH employees). (Thanks to Jennifer Heffelfinger.) Excerpt:

Traditional journals, like print journalism, remain the dominant force at the moment. However, slowly but surely, the open-access web and electronically based upstarts are gaining traction. Indeed, a senior science writer at the New York Times recently told me –when asked how the Times sees its free web-based competitors– “We’re running scared!”…Now, the pervasiveness of the Internet offers the potential for numerous additional communities –within or outside academia, in rich and in poor nations– to access previously guarded knowledge. Such access is in keeping not only with the concept that publicly funded science should be shared without charge, but also with the tradition long embraced by scientists that access to large databases such as the genomes of animals and plants and archives like PubMed should be free and public.

Nonetheless, broad acceptance of open-access publishing is at a tipping point. Several factors may yet influence its success or failure. The first is the economics of publishing for a wide audience. The web promises to be a low-cost venue that can reach, with unparalleled rapidity, large numbers of geographically dispersed and economically disparate parties.

Contrast this availability with the rising cost of the traditional print model, which threatens affordability by even the best-funded libraries in wealthy nations. For example, United Kingdom statistics show that between 1998 and 2003, the average subscription price of academic journals rose by 58 percent while retail prices increased by only 11 percent.

A second factor is public demand in developed and developing worlds. The view that at-large access to scientific data is not needed because of lack of public interest is incongruent with empirical experience. Existing numbers indicate that only one-third of the users of PubMed are academicians and researchers, whereas two-thirds are the “public” –clearly not indifferent. As science moves increasingly toward globalization, access models that transcend professional classifications, national boundaries, and accidents of birth are timely and necessary….

Currently, NIH, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the United Kingdom’s Wellcome Trust, Germany’s Max-Planck Society and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and France’s CNRS and INSERM have all encouraged their funded researchers to deposit peer-reviewed articles into publicly accessible repositories. The two major publishers of open-access journals –Public Library of Science (PLoS) and Biomed Central– have also adopted policies of directly and immediately depositing their published works into PubMed Central….I have an interest in the evolution of scientific publishing. Twelve years ago I helped start a traditional journal, the Journal of Biomedical Science, which I edited for more than 10 years. Two years ago, I left that project to found Retrovirology, an exclusively web-based open-access journal.

Although I have an abiding loyalty to my scientific societies and feel that they deserve continuing revenue streams, my personal read of the winds of change is that open-access publishing and publicly accessible digital repositories like PubMed Central may well be the dominant future players….Based on the acceptance that Retrovirology has gained within my scientific community, it seems to me that scientists do look beyond the cover of a journal to recognize the value of open accessibility to their work. Our journal caters to a relatively small cohort of retrovirologists, but it is accessed steadily 1,000 times each day, 30,000 times each month. These numbers are disproportionate to our known academic audience and suggest that a significant percentage of our readers are members of the public who value and trust our content. Public access, public trust, and public archives –are these not the wave of the future of scientific publishing?

Helen Beckett, Preserving our digital heritage, ComputerWeekly, January 31, 2006. A detailed look at the British Library project to digitize its holdings, some of which is funded and assisted by Microsoft as part of the Open Content Alliance. The article focuses more on digital preservation than OA.

Diane Le Hénaff and Catherine Thiolon, Gérer et diffuser les thèses électroniques : un choix politique pour un enjeu scientifique, Documentaliste, October 2005. Only an abstract (in French) is free online for non-subscribers, at least so far. Here is Erik Arfeuille’s translation of the title and abstract:

Managing and disseminating electronic theses: policy decisions for scientific stakes. Now that the concept of open archives has been accepted by the scientific community, open access to theses has become a major preoccupation for institutes of higher education and research. Disseminating electronic theses is a key concern in providing visibility for and access to scientific documents that although not published has been validated. Following a review of the techniques used to deposit, process and disseminate theses, this article describes STAR, the French plan for depositing, publicizing and archiving this type of record, and insists on the scientific issues of a national policy on electronic dissemination of theses.

Sudan archiving project turns dry-as-dust documents into bits for easy access, Balancing Act News Update, Issue no. 290. An unsigned news story. (Thanks to Eve Gray.) Excerpt:

Archives conjure up images of rows of shelves with documents gathering dust. And this is precisely the problem a Sudan archiving project had when it wanted to digitalise the archives. In Lokichoggio in northern Kenya, just over the border from southern Sudan, Daniel Large remembers that dust was the main problem “Scanning old documents was difficult among the dust to the point where it clogged the scanner”, writes Isabelle Gross. Large is the project manager of the Sudan Open Archive Pilot Project – a scheme that aims to digitally preserve the documents left by various humanitarian organisations in Sudan and to make them accessible to the public via a website. As Large explains, back in 1989 UNICEF -Operation Lifeline Sudan was only meant to last for three months, but in reality humanitarian work went on for more than 15 years, involving more than a dozen of other NGOs working under UNICEF’s umbrella….In Daniel’s opinion, once preserved, these [documents] will help reveal such things as the history of constraints to aid operations, the evolution of the conflict and changing conditions in locations throughout Southern Sudan over these years. He adds that there is lots of documentation currently scattered across many locations in Kenya and Sudan. Some of these are in a vulnerable condition, including some documents produced after the peace agreement in 1972. The project began after a meeting in Amsterdam between UNICEF and the members of the Rift Valley Institute. The idea was to turn the documents left by UNICEF and other NGOs into usable resources for NGO field practitioners, and more generally, for the Sudanese people, giving them the opportunity to access contemporary and historical knowledge about their country. Large throws his spotlight on the general problem of archives in the humanitarian sector. In his view, just as information is fundamental to the effectiveness and impact of emergency response, knowledge of the history of aid and development operations is important to programme design, implementation and evaluation. Documents from the past can have a practical purpose in the present, but only if they can be readily accessed. The widespread “amnesia” resulting from emergency response and development is mostly a result of a lack of institutional memory and of high staff turnover….According to Daniel Large, the fact that the [Greenstone] software is open source and free will ensure cheap and easy archive accessibility among NGO practitioners and more generally between people in Sudan….Furthermore the concept behind the project is highly transferable. Unfortunately many countries around the world such as East Timor or Afghanistan have been in turmoil over the past few years. These events have resulted in a loss of documented history for the people and the NGO working there. Short- or long-term history suggests a choice of how anybody can write about the history of its own country. How, for instance, can one dispute the position of the frontier when one can only rely on human memory? Although human memories fade over 50 years, properly archived and accessible documentation could give a more concrete guide. In the meantime the experience of the many NGO that have been involved in aid work has made Sudan’s history more accessible to the world. Balancing Act will publishing the URL to the Sudan Open Archive Pilot Project as soon as it becomes available.

Matthew Wolf-Meyer has writiten a proposal for a new OA journal of anthropology, After Culture: Emergent Anthropologies. (Thanks to Kambiz Kamrani on Anthropology.net.) From the proposal:

The purpose of After Culture: Emergent Anthropologies (hereafter AC:EA) is to allow an international group of graduate students to work alongside a similarly international group of faculty in the production of a journal that publishes primarily graduate student scholarship. Graduate students will produce peer-reviews as well as deliberate on and implement editorial policy, all with the support of a diverse group of faculty (who will participate in the peer-review process and provide advice on editorial policy)….[I]f given AAA approval, the journal will be published by the University of California Press and made available through AnthroSource….The total cost of one year’s worth of publications (2 issues, 200 pages) is approximately $3200 (based on University of California Press figures and including the costs of formatting, online storage and publicity). I have approached the president of the National Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA) about the possibility of aligning AC:EA with NASA, thereby becoming the official publication of NASA. I am currently discussing the possibility of funds being provided by the Society of Cultural Anthropology and the American Ethnological Society. The AAA journals will soon be receiving payments from the institutional subscription fees based upon how often the journal and its contents are cited and accessed through AnthroSource. It is hoped that with its provocative title and contemporary content that AC:EA will receive enough funds to cover some of its publishing costs. AC:EA may also attempt to solicit funds through the AAA meeting registration process (similar to the donations that people make for childcare).

Heather Morrison, Trends in refereed journals / open and toll access, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, January 29, 2006. Excerpt:

Data on scholarly, peer-reviewed journals from three sources is presented and analyzed. Ulrich’s reports 1,253 scholarly, peer-reviewed open access journals, about 5% of the journals in this category. The number of new journal start-ups recorded in Ulrich’s since 2001 appears to be fairly steady since 2001, both for all scholarly, peer-reviewed journals, and for open access scholarly peer-reviewed journals. The largest number of open access peer-reviewed journal start-ups recorded was in 2004, the last year for which data is likely complete, with a total of 99. DOAJ includes a total of 2,009 open access journals as of today. One possible source of the discrepancy in numbers could be an english-language bias in Ulrich’s; of the academic journals listed in Ulrich’s, almost 90% are in the english language, while DOAJ appears to represent a much broader linguistic spectrum. Both DOAJ and Ulrich’s list considerably fewer open access journals than are found in Jan Sczcepanski’s list, over 4,700 journals as of December 2005. There are several possible reasons for this. One is that many academic journals are not necessarily peer-reviewed; for example, only about 40% of the journals listed as academic / scholarly in Ulrich’s are peer-reviewed. If we assume that 40% of the journals in Jan Szczepanski’s list are peer-reviewed, the total would be 1,880 - very close to the DOAJ figure of 2,009. There are reasons to think that all available figures for open access journals are underestimates. Jan Sczcepanski’s, the longest list available, for example, focuses on social sciences, humanities, and math; it is also primarily the work of one individual working on a volunteer basis.

Heather Morrison, David Goodman: Ardent Open Access Advocate, OA Librarian, January 29, 2006. Another installment in Heather’s celebration of librarians who fight for OA. Excerpt:

Dr. David Goodman of the Palmer School of Library and Information Studies, Long Island University, has been an ardent advocate of open access for many years….Many of us know David through his long-standing, and much appreciated, contributions to the Liblicense discussion list…as well as his contributions to the SPARC Open Access Forum….Some of David’s formal writings can be found in David’s E-LIS or D-LIST. David edited a November 2004 special issue of Serials Review on Open Access - his own The Criteria for Open Access is highly recommended as a well-balanced overview, particularly for the novice advocate. Through his long-standing involvement with the renowned and highly innovative Charleston conference, David succeeded in developing an OA-centric 2004 conference theme. Like others in the open access movement, however, many of David’s best works are not the formal publications. When we are working in an arena like open access, timing is critical - policymakers are discussing the issues now, not next year; publishers are reviewing their procedures now, too. Rather than waiting for the formal publication process, with its academic rewards but inevitable delay, David often shares his knowledge, opinions, and even preliminary data with us right away.

The January issue of INDICARE is devoted to DRM and handicap accessibility. From Knud Böhle’s editorial introducing the issue:

Disabled persons, especially blind, partially sighted and other print disabled people have to rely on exemptions within copyright law allowing them to effectively use assistive technologies even in cases where the content is protected by TPMs. The three articles dealing with this subject make us aware of the troubles still existing, but also of the solutions at hand. When talking about this subject it is important to have in mind that blind and visually impaired people are consumers like you and me, and that improving accessibility is not only to the benefit of this group, but for all of us.

Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s senior policy lawyer, has blogged an explanation of Google’s decision to censor the Chinese version of its index. Excerpt:

We know that many people are upset about this decision, and frankly, we understand their point of view. This wasn’t an easy choice, but in the end, we believe the course of action we’ve chosen will prove to be the right one. Launching a Google domain that restricts information in any way isn’t a step we took lightly. For several years, we’ve debated whether entering the Chinese market at this point in history could be consistent with our mission and values. Our executives have spent a lot of time in recent months talking with many people, ranging from those who applaud the Chinese government for its embrace of a market economy and its lifting of 400 million people out of poverty to those who disagree with many of the Chinese government’s policies, but who wish the best for China and its people. We ultimately reached our decision by asking ourselves which course would most effectively further Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally useful and accessible. Or, put simply: how can we provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people? Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely. Whether our critics agree with our decision or not, due to the severe quality problems faced by users trying to access Google.com from within China, this is precisely the choice we believe we faced. By launching Google.cn and making a major ongoing investment in people and infrastructure within China, we intend to change that. No, we’re not going to offer some Google products, such as Gmail or Blogger, on Google.cn until we’re comfortable that we can do so in a manner that respects our users’ interests in the privacy of their personal communications. And yes, Chinese regulations will require us to remove some sensitive information from our search results. When we do so, we’ll disclose this to users, just as we already do in those rare instances where we alter results in order to comply with local laws in France, Germany and the U.S. Obviously, the situation in China is far different than it is in those other countries; while China has made great strides in the past decades, it remains in many ways closed. We aren’t happy about what we had to do this week, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. But how is that full access most likely to be achieved? We are convinced that the Internet, and its continued development through the efforts of companies like Google, will effectively contribute to openness and prosperity in the world. Our continued engagement with China is the best (perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there. We’re in this for the long haul. In the years to come, we’ll be making significant and growing investments in China. Our launch of google.cn, though filtered, is a necessary first step toward achieving a productive presence in a rapidly changing country that will be one of the world’s most important and dynamic for decades to come. To some people, a hard compromise may not feel as satisfying as a withdrawal on principle, but we believe it’s the best way to work toward the results we all desire.

Dan Cornwall has blogged some notes on how the State of Alaska provides OA to state publications and preserves them with LOCKSS.